Great service and consistency in resolving issues
Had to delay the review as to test the true nature of the CV made. Overall, the service experience with Claire is wonderful and great personality. Very friendly and helpful. Many positives for her thought processes going through why she did the way she wrote my quality CV.
But unfortunately, I am still unemployed after having my CV made, but making progress after completing an intensive 1 week training with Cerco in getting on-call contracts which happened since February 2026 and started working on contract since May 2026, which is a great start. And it wasn't until recently (2 weeks ago - June 2026) I had discovered a potential critical flaw with the skills section where an IT training company (JBC Skills) identified my skills, even though bullet pointed, was embodied into a supposedly hidden table format as they claimed. This means that the ATS checkers may have missed out my valuable skills and feel very disappointed only after realising after 1 year! Therefore I had to change the way this section was written asap.
James helped to offer some assurance and helped me to understand the situation a little better. Turns out that JBC's methods are too old fashioned and backward and just simply trying to create an agenda as they are working towards a marking scheme. I am very grateful for James to overcome this issue for me. As I told him, I will stick with Claire's CV as it represents me better as opposed to traditional type of CV's. Since my unemployment days 15 years ago, I never trusted a traditional type as I never had job offers then. It was only through the CV Center to which my success was built based upon where I worked since 2016. I would recommend their services if a traditional CV approach proves to not work for you, like I experienced and used to get 2 interviews a fortnight before AI came into place.
Besides this, every piece of advice is spot on and very happy with her efforts.
Also, job boards like indeed, cv library, reed and many others make it even difficult to upload more than one type of CV, therefore had to keep the proposed personal profile template for that and customise the personal statement if the job redirects me to their own job page.
Reply from The CV Centre UK
Thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed review, Idris, and for your kind words about Claire’s professionalism, support and approach. We’ll make sure she sees them.
We’re sorry to hear that your job search has been so frustrating. It is most definitely the toughest job market that I have seen in my entire 28-year career.
We take ATS compatibility very seriously and our CVs are always designed in line with current ATS-safe principles. As standard, we provide clients with both an editable Word version and a PDF version. (The Word version is generally the most appropriate format for online applications and ATS/job-board uploads, while the PDF is useful where a fixed-format document is required.)
Modern ATS and job-board platforms can read far more than older ATS folklore suggests, but parsing can still vary between systems, file formats and third-party checker tools. No single online ATS checker or third-party tool can replicate how every employer’s system will interpret a document.
On the specific point raised, having checked the document we provided, the skills section was not in fact created using a hidden table format. This is just not something we ever do.
We would, however, be very happy to review the exact version you have been uploading, together with any feedback or screenshots from JBC Skills or any checker tool, so that we can see precisely what they are reading. If any sensible formatting adjustment would help minimise parsing risk for online applications, we’ll gladly make those changes for you.
Kind regards,
James
James Innes
Founder, James Innes Group